But if it's outdated, a dead fad, or simply not in demand you're better off looking for another opportunity.

On the other hand if the answers were yes. Then you are in luck.

Such a product/program or service has all the heavy lifting already done for you.

Selling it will be much easier because as they say it will be "selling its self".

3) How well does the product convert?

Conversion rate is the percentage of prospects who bought the product.

In affiliate marketing conversion can be a painful process, sometimes taking up to 60 days for a lead to become a buyer.

You need a product/offer that has both a high front end conversion and back end conversion.

That means people that buy immediately or on impulse (front end) and people who don't but eventually buy after some convincing (back end).

A high conversion rate implies that a higher percentage of the traffic (potential customers) you will send to an offer will buy.

More buyers means more affiliate commissions.

Usually decent products will announce these conversion statistics on their "affiliates" page.

If not then you could research it online to get a general indicator.

Either way you should always test with a small amount of highly targeted traffic to get a feel for how the product converts for you before scaling.

4) How big are the commissions it pays per sale?

Great! now you've got a high quality product and it's both popular and in demand.

You're making 100 sales a day and converting 5% on the front end and 10% on the back end but you are still none the richer.

But why?

Because of the value of the commissions you are earning.

So many affiliates make this mistake and sadly it runs their business into the ground.

A critical part of the product evaluation criteria is; how much will they be paying you per sale?

If you are going to be sending traffic either way, why not pick a product that pays you more per sale?

More money for the same effort and cost.

You need to also combine the conversions with this point through a very important statistic called the EPC.

EPC stands for Earning Per Click. That means how much money on average people make per clicks sent to the page.

This is usually calculated as total earnings divided by total clicks sent.

The higher this number the better the product is for you.

It's also best to look at programs and products that pay you throughout the customer's lifecycle.

That means pay you every time the customer buys, not just the first time.

5) What kind of support are affiliates given?

This is especially important for newbie affiliate marketers but is a good indicator used by even the most seasoned affiliate marketers.

How much support do they give their affiliates?

Affiliate programs that educate you, give you around the clock support via chat/phone/email, and give you the tools to market their products are the best.

You have to understand that these programs make money when you make a sale, so it is in their best interest to help you make it.

If they don't help you make sales, then really they don't care about the sales and in turn are not professionals.

You are better off avoiding such products because not only would you struggle and your sales suffer...

But if this lack of professionalism and support is an indicator of how they treat their customers then your own personal brand and reputation are both at risk here.

Look for programs that offer you training, affiliate support and marketing materials like swipes, videos, etc.

6) Is the program/product being updated?

This is very important if you want a program/product that you can keep selling for a long time.

Many of the products and programs on the market are created with the set it and forget it mindset.

That means they create the product once and keep it and never add anything to it for years.

This is usually ok if you get on it at the start but with time it gets outdated.

So if you end up on it a few months or years after it's initial launch you are less likely to make any sales and the ones you make could hurt your credibility.

Always look for a product with people behind it that are actively involved and updating it constantly.

Always adding more products you can sell and making sure their product evolves and is always on par with the developments in the market.

If you would like to see what a professional program, that is constantly being updated, with multiple video ads, banner ads, video sales letters, email ad swipes, email series, optin pages and giveaways looks like, here are my recommendations.